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Thomas Midgley and the Politics of Industrial Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Stuart W. Leslie
Stuart W. Leslie
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of History, Rochester Institute of Technology
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Abstract

The conventional distinctions between “practical” and “scientific” research and development can be misleading. The experience of Thomas Midgley, Jr., at the General Motors Corporation in the three decades before World War II, and especially his critical role in the development of “antiknock” gasoline additives, freon refrigerant, and synthetic rubber, illustrate this fact. Dr. Leslie demonstrates that the management of corporate research and development, especially as that management affects uniquely talented individuals whose interests do not necessarily reflect the immediate needs of the company as seen by management, is basic to success. To solve such problems as they arose, Charles F. Kettering, himself a sympathetic scientist as well as distinguished inventor, worked closely with chief executive Alfred P. Sloan, whose genius for solving managerial problems matched the scientific genius of the most brilliant men in the General Motors laboratories.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 54 , Issue 4: Business History and the History of Technology , Winter 1980 , pp. 480 - 503
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1980

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References

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5 Lynwood Bryant's as yet unpublished work on engine knock, is an important source for much of the information on TEL. I thank Professor Bryant for sharing it with me.

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21 Alfred Sloan to Charles Kettering, January 18, 1926 (Kettering Archives). Copies of many of these letters are also available as part of the Trial Transcript of U.S. vs. E. I. du Pont de Nemours, United States District Court, Northern Illinois District, Eastern Division, 1953.

22 Ibid.

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32 Lammot du Pont to Alfred Sloan, January 25, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

33 Alfred Sloan to Lammot du Pont, January 21, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

34 Alfred Sloan to Pierre S. du Pont, February 3, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

35 Alfred Sloan to Lammot du Pont, January 21, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

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38 Ibid., 51 (April, 1929), 1294.

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42 Ibid., 56 (June, 1934), 1325.

43 Ibid., 59 (December, 1937), 2501.

44 Alfred Sloan to J. Brooks Jackson, February 3, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

45 Alfred Sloan to Thomas Midgley, March 8, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

46 James McEvoy to John Pratt, December 3, 1927 (Kettering Archives).

47 Thomas Midgley to Alfred Sloan, September 5, 1928 (Kettering Archives).

48 Ibid.

49 Ibid.

50 Sloan, My Years with General Motors, 355.

51 Ibid., 356.

52 Donaldson Brown, “Report on Operations of Kinetic Chemicals, Inc.,” internal report to General Motors Policy Committee, October 1944 (Kettering Archives), 6.

53 Ibid.

54 Ibid., 7.

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66 Layton, “Mirror Image Twins.”

67 Sloan, My Years With General Motors, 252.

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